Effects of lead and socio-cultural factors on cognition and behaviour of children in Port Pirie and Broken Hill

铅和社会文化因素对皮里港和布罗肯希尔儿童认知和行为的影响

• 批准号: nhmrc : 399358
• 负责人: A/Pr Peter Baghurst
• 金额: $ 26.33万
• 依托单位: The University of Adelaide
• 依托单位国家: 澳大利亚
• 项目类别: NHMRC Project Grants
• 财政年份: 2006
• 资助国家: 澳大利亚
• 起止时间: 2006-01-01 至 2007-12-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://researchdata.edu.au/effects-lead-socio-broken-hill/99136
• 关键词: Effects; lead; socio; cultural; factors

The effect of lead on children's 'intelligence' is controversial. Poorer IQ scores in children with higher exposure to lead, have been found reasonably consistently, - but there is disagreement on whether lead exposure is simply a common ASSOCIATE of poor IQ, or whether it actually CAUSES deficits. In 1994, the NHMRC prudently recommended a graded series of interventions to be implemented, depending on the proprtion of children in the community with blood lead concentrations in specific categories above 10 ug lead -100 ml of blood. The choice of this figure (10 ug-dl) was more pragmatic than scientific; there being very little data on the health effects of exposures below 10 ug-dl available at that time. A recent analysis of pooled data from past studies has now suggested there may be very large effects on child IQ at blood lead concentration BELOW 10 ug-dl. Health authorities will soon be lobbied intensely to spend vast sums on new lead abatement programs. Cities like Port Pirie and Broken Hill (where cooperative programs have achieved such significant reductions in lead exposure that a high percentage of their children now have blood lead levels below 10 ug-dl), will be forced to examine expensive options to avoid closure of the industries which provide their economic backbones, if this analysis proves to be correct. Our proposal argues that before committing to new and costly abatement programs, there is an urgent need to augment our evidence-base by conducting a new study ofchildren with lead exposures below 10 ug-dl, using more modern measures of intelligence. The study will pay closer attention to some of the socio-cultural and inherited determinants of child IQ which may have confounded the lead-IQ association in past studies, and will supplement IQ assessments (which are now considered to derive from a very old and narrow view of intelligence) with new tools for measuring 'intelligence' that may be less socio-culturally dependent.

铅对儿童“智力”的影响是有争议的。在接触铅较高的儿童中，智商得分较低的人被合理地一致地发现--但对于接触铅只是智商低下的常见关联，还是它实际上导致了智商低下，人们存在分歧。1994年，NHMRC谨慎地建议实施一系列分级干预措施，这取决于社区中特定类别血铅浓度超过10微克铅-100毫升血的儿童的比例。选择这个数字(10ug-dl)更实际，而不是科学；当时关于低于10ug-dl的暴露对健康影响的数据很少。最近对过去研究的汇总数据的分析表明，血铅浓度低于10ug-dl可能会对儿童智商产生非常大的影响。卫生当局很快就会被大力游说，要求他们在新的含铅减排项目上投入大量资金。如果这一分析被证明是正确的，像皮里港和布罗肯希尔这样的城市(这些城市的合作项目已经实现了铅暴露的大幅减少，以至于他们的孩子中有很大一部分现在的血铅水平低于10ug-dl)，将被迫研究昂贵的选择，以避免关闭提供其经济支柱的行业。我们的提案认为，在致力于新的昂贵的减排计划之前，迫切需要通过使用更现代的智力测量方法，对铅暴露在10ug-dl以下的儿童进行一项新的研究，以增强我们的证据基础。这项研究将更密切地关注儿童智商的一些社会文化和遗传决定因素，这些因素可能在过去的研究中混淆了领先智商和智商之间的联系，并将用新的工具来补充智商评估(现在被认为是从非常古老和狭隘的智商角度得出的)，这些工具可能不那么依赖于社会文化。